Mommy Has a New Toy!

Or, at least that's what my husband calls it. Mine is black.



He actually compared it to his new Lego set. He may have bought the legos for teaching the computer class, but he and the girls have been having a blast building robots here at home too!

You may be wondering, "Seriously? A stethoscope?" And, the abbreviated answer is, "Yep."

The longer version details how we received two stethoscopes from our DME (Durable Medical Equipment) company when Lily first came home from the hospital, at 6 months old. One was for daily use, and the other was always kept in her emergency bag (the bag with all of her stuff, that we took anytime we left the house).

Unfortunately, several months ago, the girls got ahold of my daily use stethoscope, and broke it. The other one was never as nice. Both were just cheapies, but the E-bag version was abhorrent. Not only was it torture to my ears, but I couldn't hear a cotton pickin' thing out of it, which makes it really hard to distinguish when Lily has diminished breath sounds! Plus, I had to hold at least one ear piece in my hand, so it wouldn't twist out of my ear completely. Let's just say Piece. Of. Junk. would be way too nice a description!

Is the Littmann Cardiology III more stethoscope than I need? Probably. Am I luuuuurving it? You bet I am!! Besides, one of these days, when I do actually make it to nursing school, I'll just be that much further ahead! :-)

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To update on Lily: She's had good hours and bad ones. She's been on as much as 5L of O2. Currently on 4L and still de-satting. I think that's just because her evening neb worked some things around. It's quite likely that here soon I'll have to go in and give her another Xoponex with some BD's/CPT's. The good news is that her respiratory rate has stayed within normal limits for Lily, and she's had absolutely zero retractions. That's another reason why I suspect mucus plugs to be the culprit behind some of these de-sats and elevated oxygen needs.